Worsfold lifts lid on Eagles drug scandal

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To be honest, I want to try and debate with MB here but I'm not sure he has a full understanding of what happened in those years. And he seems to believe that Worsfold, and Worsfold alone, could've stopped Ben Cousins doing what he did. He knew there was an issue from 2004 onwards - but what could he have done about it? Exclusion didn't help. Stripping him of the captaincy didn't help. Rehab didn't help. Deregistration didn't help. Even the police seemed reticent to act. It's a very complex issue and trying to paint Worsfold as the guy responsible for all of this is ludicrous.
I'm not arguing Worsfold or the Eagles could've saved Ben. We've all seen the lengths Brian Cousins has been to for his son and the lack of success he's had.

But yes look at all the things West Coast did eventually do - exclusion, captaincy, finally acknowledging a problem publicly, then rehab the deregistration. And look at the time line involved. 2006 and 2007. 2-3 years after questions were raised and every action seemingly followed by another chance at redemption.

I see a favourite son coach protecting a favourite son player from the home truths and meaningful interventions that could've been taken earlier.

And it's no so much about Cousins as the large parts of the playing group who all had little intervention taken. I mean here we are less than a decade later and Buckley is tossing out a bunch of players like Heath Shaw for a couple of undisciplined acts on field. Throw back to West Coast and Chad Fletcher nearly dies in a Vegas hotel room and he still plays on at West Coast for several seasons.

I stand by my assertion that Woosha was either naive or foolish and that maybe due to little fault of his own it's still a big mark against his leadership similar to Hird.
 
I dispute that the mark is as big as Hird - and that is reflected in the fact one coach has been suspended and one has not.

I do agree though that it does bring into question his management of the issue, but I argue that I'm not sure what else could've been done except perhaps acknowledging the issue earlier. After all, even with all those punishments and penalties being stepped up in severity over the years - Ben Cousins still didn't change his ways. Worsfold stated in the article that the culture takes a while to change and I'm not sure immediately turfing Chad Fletcher, Daniel Kerr, Daniel Chick and Adam Hunter would've achieved that culture change straight away.

Re: Heath Shaw - I assume you forgot about the betting and the crashing of cars?
 
Good read.....

I like the bit with the cops. It seems pretty unreal looking back and now knowing this. If you were in Perth at the time, remember the media scrunity on the whole squad. Its kind of amazing some even stuck around.
 

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That may be true of a lot of industries.

But the AFL and the West Coast Eagles are extremely well resourced and powerful organization. They also have significant media pull. They are able to demote employees to lower jobs (the reserves) without justification and can not renew contracts without reason and trade players very easily as well.

Cousins was stripped of the captaincy like it was a punishment. Yet only a very irresponsible organization would even think to keep Cousins on as captain. Gardiner was traded at the end of 2006. Very little else happened until way after then. Cousins got a 3 year deal after the booze bus incident!

Even when the depths of his drug problem became known he wasn't sacked he was welcomed back.

Woosha kept the band together long enough to make the great album (win a premiership). He even tried for more until the inevitable happened.

Maybe with hindsight I'm harsh on Woosha. But the title of his leadership talks should be "I'm a great footy coach but I failed Cousins and others" and not anything to do with his powers of cultural reform.



Pffft - drop ben to the reserves in perth circa 1996 without an explanati
Footy clubs are employers who have great freedom in who they employ. Not many other industries can perform back ground character checks, detailed medical exams, regular skin fold checks and in depth psychological testing prior to hiring or firing you.

As you mentioned that certain ex hawk is exactly that an ex.

Plus there have been a couple of suspect injury lay offs the last couple of years. A hawk with a slow to heal hammy and a certain soft tissue injury at a team that wears black and white.

My issue is not with players ocassional drug use. Just like the police it's a lot of effort for no real gain to police that. It's about putting your head in the sand as multiple players escalate drug use and criminal or antisocial behaviour and one player in particular in Cousins spiralled way way out of control.


I have no qualms about saying the eagles were slow and right behind the eight ball with dealing with the problem

My problem is that people assumed they should do what exactly? We are the benchmark. The first club to be presented with this circumstance - once we figured out what to do - we did it - and we cost ourselves any chance of a repeat and possibly lost our greatest ever player or one thereof. Along with a host of others who were known arseclowns.


We should have done better. Lots better. So shoukd lots of clubs. We were just the first.
 
I dispute that the mark is as big as Hird - and that is reflected in the fact one coach has been suspended and one has not.

I do agree though that it does bring into question his management of the issue, but I argue that I'm not sure what else could've been done except perhaps acknowledging the issue earlier. After all, even with all those punishments and penalties being stepped up in severity over the years - Ben Cousins still didn't change his ways. Worsfold stated in the article that the culture takes a while to change and I'm not sure immediately turfing Chad Fletcher, Daniel Kerr, Daniel Chick and Adam Hunter would've achieved that culture change straight away.

Re: Heath Shaw - I assume you forgot about the betting and the crashing of cars?
I didn't forget that about Shaw. He and his mates are the rat pack, pretty much self confessed idiots. But they've had a decent stretch of good behaviour and Buckley's culture change seems more focussed on authority and rebuild rather than off field behaviour. If he can turf a few out for that then I think Woosha could've survived publicly admitting a drug culture problem and addressing it as he saw fit. It's amazing what footy fans will tolerate if their clubs sells them a vision.

I think West Coast led by Woosha could've had owned up to the escalating problem. Cut a couple, suspended a couple and got to work fixing it before it got so out of control. I doubt it would have had any effect on Cousins if he was too far gone but it might have saved some players who I think got lucky not to run in to more problems.

Culture change takes a while if your main focus is to try and win a premiership with the talented but flawed players you have at the time. Get the broom out and a strong club like West Coast could clean the place up very quickly just as you did post 2008. A lot of players went and those who stayed ended up behaving. The proof is kind of there to see.
 
Pffft - drop ben to the reserves in perth circa 1996 without an explanati


I have no qualms about saying the eagles were slow and right behind the eight ball with dealing with the problem

My problem is that people assumed they should do what exactly? We are the benchmark. The first club to be presented with this circumstance - once we figured out what to do - we did it - and we cost ourselves any chance of a repeat and possibly lost our greatest ever player or one thereof. Along with a host of others who were known arseclowns.


We should have done better. Lots better. So shoukd lots of clubs. We were just the first.
It's a reasonable point but it's also a bit of a cop out.

It's certainly not the response of someone who's giving a talk on leadership.

Either way Lance Angwin was sacked in 2004 after turning up to training high. I'm not sure how that leaked to the media or if it was Carlton getting on the front foot and stepping in. Maybe no West Coast player was that blatantly dumb but there were enough players in trouble that you'd think one of them would've slipped up some time in 2004 or 2005 and the club could've used that Angwin precedent.
 
I doubt any Eagles supporter around here condones the use of drugs by Eagles players - recreational or otherwise.

Maybe this is broadening the issue too much but personally I have no issue with AFL players taking recreational drugs for the simple reason that it doesn't effect the integrity of the competition by boosting performance and the players are only putting themselves at risk rather than hurting others. Really if someone wants to take drugs that's a public health issue rather than a legal one (in my opinion of course).
 
It's a reasonable point but it's also a bit of a cop out.

It's certainly not the response of someone who's giving a talk on leadership.

Either way Lance Angwin was sacked in 2004 after turning up to training high. I'm not sure how that leaked to the media or if it was Carlton getting on the front foot and stepping in. Maybe no West Coast player was that blatantly dumb but there were enough players in trouble that you'd think one of them would've slipped up some time in 2004 or 2005 and the club could've used that Angwin precedent.

Think Angwin had other problems too.

On a side note, I hope to shit we murder your club on Sunday :thumbsu:
 
Good player, good coach at developing fundamentals and getting a hard team to win a premiership, but Worsfold's time at the Eagles in terms of player safety is right up there if not worse than James Hird's.

Yeah you might have a point there......... if Worsfold was buying the coke for them and shoving it up their noses himself without the players knowing what it was.
 
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What a load of crap.

How could anyone listen to that with a straight face.

A trained pharmacist hears that his players have illicit drug use problems in 2004 and takes years to effect cultural change. Are you kidding me John?

You knew Cousins and others had troubles and you put your head in the sand until after a premiership and it took Cousin's completely spinning out of control to do something about it.

Good player, good coach at developing fundamentals and getting a hard team to win a premiership, but Worsfold's time at the Eagles in terms of player safety is right up there if not worse than James Hird's.

What are you implying with the bolded? Worsfold's profession prior to becoming a full time coach plays no role in any discussion about him.
 
The AFL sure as hell didnt have any problems throwing their little law book at us compared to how they treat current day (victorian) drug culture clubs.

That bit's intriguing only because it's somehow become accepted that the AFL and its clubs should be inflictors of punishments over and above the legal system.


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The AFL sure as hell didnt have any problems throwing their little law book at us compared to how the treat current day (victorian) drug culture clubs.

To be fair the AFL are very consistent in these matters. They sweep them all under the carpet wherever possible.

It's just that Cousins forced their hand by letting it become so public they couldn't hush it up.

They don't really care about drug use, they only care about the damage it does to their image.
 

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Good post and spot on.

To be fair the AFL are very consistent in these matters. They sweep them all under the carpet wherever possible.

It's just that Cousins forced their hand by letting it become so public they couldn't hush it up.

They don't really care about drug use, they only care about the damage it does to their image.


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Chris Mainwearing - DEAD - shortly after partying with Cousins
Chad Fletcher - nearly died in Vegas
Cousins - taken to hospital many times with varying physical and psychological illnesses

For all the talk about the Essendon supplement program we haven't had any player report symptoms yet and a lot of the substances injected are approved for use in many countries. I'm not sticking up for Dank yet but presumably the players have had full medical check ups since and so far anyway aren't suing for maltreatment. Certainly none of them have had life threatening problems.

Are you serious? Can't even compare the two, West coast had a recreational drug problem, this is the players private lives. Worsfold didn't come into the room one day and say "here boys do some coke". Essendon's problem was club induced and brought into the players professional lives by their employers!
 
A question for Eagle fans: we always hear about the "bad" Eagles who were involved in this stuff....names like Cousins, Fletcher, Chick, Hunter, Gardiner, etc etc keep popping up.

Who were the so-called "good Eagles" who, as Woosha put it, started expressing concern and speaking out against this kind of stuff? Judd obviously. But who were the others?
 
A question for Eagle fans: we always hear about the "bad" Eagles who were involved in this stuff....names like Cousins, Fletcher, Chick, Hunter, Gardiner, etc etc keep popping up.

Who were the so-called "good Eagles" who, as Woosha put it, started expressing concern and speaking out against this kind of stuff? Judd obviously. But who were the others?
Cox for one.
 
A question for Eagle fans: we always hear about the "bad" Eagles who were involved in this stuff....names like Cousins, Fletcher, Chick, Hunter, Gardiner, etc etc keep popping up.

Who were the so-called "good Eagles" who, as Woosha put it, started expressing concern and speaking out against this kind of stuff? Judd obviously. But who were the others?

As IN mentioned, Cox certainly, but also I suspect the leadership group players that were retained post-cleanout and weren't prematurely retired/delisted/traded such as Beau Waters and Darren Glass. Daniel Kerr must've cleaned up his act, too, but he wasn't the 'good Eagle' back then.
 
As IN mentioned, Cox certainly, but also I suspect the leadership group players that were retained post-cleanout and weren't prematurely retired/delisted/traded such as Beau Waters and Darren Glass. Daniel Kerr must've cleaned up his act, too, but he wasn't the 'good Eagle' back then.
Embley
 
What are you implying with the bolded? Worsfold's profession prior to becoming a full time coach plays no role in any discussion about him.
Why not? People talk about Clarkson's teaching background all the time. Club has drug problem - coach has highly trained degree in drugs. I'm not making any of the stupid suggestions about Woosha using his pharmacy qualifications for anything bad, I'm just saying his pharmaceutical training was one reason I found his lack of insight in to the particular problems a drug culture can cause staggering. Most coaches wouldn't know the difference between amphetamines and amphibians, Woosha would've.
 
Their board gets away with far too little blame for the whole debacle. Continued to indulge the players getting away with shitty behaviour, giving judge the cold should shoulder and eventually the arse when he tried to do something about it and kept making excuses for Cousins and Gardiner. Remember Nisbett's bizarre attempt to imply Gardiner was suffering depression when he got pissed and wrote off his ute in Scarborough?

And what the **** was Mick doing during his last few years in charge?

The paradigm shift came when the national media started sniffing around the story - guys like Andrew Rule at The Age. The higher-ups could no longer get away with calling The West and the TV networks and threatening to cut off access if certain stories were reported/broadcast.
 
Him getting rid of all the dopeheads at the club was a brave decision. It was one of the reasons why we had such a fall from grace on the field in 2008. We could of played finals in 2008, 2009 or 2010 if he had kept some of those players.


No we couldn't .. We sucked coz Judd and Cousins left. We still had fletcher, hunter, Kerr who were known dabblers up to 09
 
To be fair the AFL are very consistent in these matters. They sweep them all under the carpet wherever possible.

It's just that Cousins forced their hand by letting it become so public they couldn't hush it up.

They don't really care about drug use, they only care about the damage it does to their image.

That and I'm sure they were rapt that they could use West Coast to fire their warning shot.

A few community programs here, a nice guy captain there and we remain a powerhouse club. Drag a small Victorian club into the mess we were in and the consequences could've been dire.
 

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Worsfold lifts lid on Eagles drug scandal

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